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A Historiography of Recent Publications on Catholic Native Residential Schools

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A Historiography of Recent Publications on Catholic Native Residential Schools CCHA, Historical Studies, 61 (1995), 79-97 A Historiography of Recent Publications On Catholic Native Residential Schools Terence J. FAY In 1984 the Canadian Historical Review began to catalogue publications on aboriginal topics. Since then the quantity of the publications on Native peoples has noticeably increased. This essay will look at recent publications on Native residential schools with a particular emphasis on residential schools under Catholic direction, mainly in Ontario and western Canada. From 1860 to 1960, out of a total of 101 schools in Canada, Catholic residential schools numbered fifty-seven, representing nearly sixty per cent of the Native schools.1 As a non-aboriginal Christian scholar with an interest in Native residential schools, I think that it is important to grasp some of the major interpretations and themes identified by educators and historians studying residential schools. Much has been written about Native residential schools over the last few years. The Native residential school came into existence during the nineteenth century as an altruistic enterprise of the different churches. In the seventeenth century the Jesuits and Ursulines had established such schools in New France but were not successful with them, and they were soon abandoned.2 The Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians and Catholics with fresh mission enthusiasm in the nineteenth century founded residential schools as a way to foster spirituality among the Native people, many of whom were already Christian. Evangelization of those who had not encountered Christ was also part of the program.3 The curriculum employed 1 National Library of Canada, Annual Report of the Department of Citizenship and immigration, 1950s; National Steering Committee for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Some Observations on the Residential School Experience and Its Implications for the Church in Canada” (September 1992), pp. 9 and 14. 2 Cornelius J. Jaenen, The Role of the Church in New France (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1976), pp. 10-11, 25-26, 97-99. 3 Many would contend that residential schools were a direct effort at cultural replacement or cultural imperialism; see David A. Nock, A Victorian Missionary and Canadian Indian Policy: Cultural Synthesis vs Cultural Replacement (Waterloo, — 79 — in the residential schools was primarily of Euro-Canadian design. Like other Canadian schools of the period, instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion formed the basis of the curriculum. The courses were generally simplified to open them to Native students unfamiliar with the English language. The Euro-Canadian school system was part of the objective universe of western civilization during the nineteenth century. As necessary components of the school system, this historical paradigm included a set curriculum, regular attendance, numerous rules, assiduous study and certain language skills. Such knowledge and Christian lifestyle, it was believed, prepared a Native person for life in Canadian society. The values of this objective universe structured into the nineteenth century school were considered to be unchanging. The values were to be transmitted to the student so that they could be assimilated and imitated.4 For over one hundred years, Native residential schools in Canada existed in this western world of objectivity. Since the 1960s a paradigm shift has moved schools from being part of an objective universe of unchangeable institutions and values to a subjective universe of personal growth and cultural roots. Values are only values for a person if they are chosen to be part of one’s life. The principal concern for me as a student is to appropriate my gifts, to engage the universe, and to move in the direction of self-transcendence. Fitting into a classical school for me is no longer a concern. I must enter into serious dialogue with life around me to learn where I stand in the universe, to strive for authenticity, and to appropriate my cultural identity.5 Our attitude towards the Native residential school has been caught in this paradigm shift. The school that was laudable to Native people, church workers, and government officials for over one hundred years,6 has become Ontario: Published for the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, 1988); M. Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism (New York: David McKay, 1974). I find this contention does not explain the lack of effect of Native residential schools. In theory cultural replacement may seem reasonable, but in reality it breaks down as Ken S. Coates found in Best Left Indians. 4 Margaret Whitehead, ed., They Call Me Father: Memoirs of Father Nicolas Coccola (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1988), pp. 58-59. 5 Julien Harvey, “The Church in Canada Twenty Years After Vatican II,” Lumen Vitae 41: 3 (1986), 283-84; Bernard J.F. Lonergan, “The Transition from a Classicist World-View to Historical-Mindedness,” Second Collection: Papers by Bernard J.F. Lonergan, eds. W.F.J. Ryan and B.J. Tyrrell (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1974), pp. 1-9. 6 In Moon in Wintertime (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), John Webster Grant concludes that “despite its shortcomings, the residential school evidently met a need” (p. 183). In Sacred Feathers: The Reverend Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby) and the Mississauga Indians (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), the main protagonist sought to build at Munceytown two residential — 80 — unacceptable, a liability, and has been condemned variously by all three groups. Some schools had improved. However, as the significance of cultural identity and the self-expression of that identity became overwhelming values in our society, the residential schools, now associated with the objective universe, were repudiated. It was considered crucial for the education of all ethnic groups, and especially for the education of Native people, to have the right to guide their youth in the pursuit of their own cultural values, which included language and culture. Government interest in residential schools was slight until the 1880s when federal government began to fund already existing religious schools for Native youths as industrial schools and thus demanded that the schools be English-speaking. By the end of the century the government had taken over funding and demanded English-only in the schools; its goal of assimilation of the Native people into Euro-Canadian society became clear. In 1910 a revised education policy for Native students cut school expenses and simplified the curriculum, while an expanded policy enriched the curriculum for Euro-Canadian children.7 School attendance for Native children became compulsory only in 1920. It must be said that the goals of the government, particularly in the north, were never those of the church. For many Catholic schools, conversion was a reasonable goal but assimilation was not necessarily an objective at all.8 Church people lived with the Native people in the rural areas and were interdependent on many levels with the community. They were in constant touch with the people through working out problems in the school and through the regularity of the sacramental life of the church and thus had more opportunity to understand what Native people were saying. Many of the Catholic missionaries were French-speaking and had mixed feelings and less enthusiasm for the spread of English language, empire and culture. Duncan Campbell Scott led the government's effort to take “measures to render the system [for the education of Native children] more efficient.” E. Brian Titley provides a persuasive and scholarly exposition of Scott’s administration of Indian Affairs in Canada from 1909 to 1932. “The educa- tion of the Native children in day and residential schools was one of the key schools, one for boys and another for girls. Jones sought funding from band annuities and from his own fund-raising tour of Britain in 1845 (pp. 192-96). 7 Jean Barman, “Separate and Unequal: Indian and White Girls at All Hallows School, 1884-1920,” Indian Education in Canada I (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986), p. 9 and 120. 8 Robert J. Carney, “The Hawthorn Survey Report, 1966-1967, Indians and Oblates and Integrated Schooling,” Historical Studies 50, II (1983), pp. 614-15; J.R. Miller, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Indian-White Relations in Canada, Revised ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), p. 198; They Call Me Father, pp. 56-57. — 81 — elements in Canada’s Indian policy from its inception.”9 To initiate this program, it seemed wise to the government, in Titley’s view, to build on the existing ecclesiastical institutions and to use the persuasive powers of the missionaries to guarantee their success.10 Interestingly, Titley points out the judgments of departmental officials noted “the particular success of the Catholics as administrators .... The children were reported to be clean, well-- fed, and healthy.”11 Ironically, Titley’s examination of the government's relationship with the church and Native people is itself narrow in focus. His use of Native and church sources is inadequate because of the absence of research in the archives of religious congregations, especially those of the Oblate Fathers. He presumes the French-Canadian missionaries were similar to English evangelicals and thus part of English cultural imperialism.12 At least one Native residential school, St. Peter Claver at Spanish, Ontario, does not fit into his industrial school categories. St. Peter Claver did not follow the standard plan for locating schools far from the reserve and close to white settlements, or establishing them on land leased from the government.13 As a result, Titley’s study is limited in its insights. Perhaps the most interesting volume in recent years on Native residen- tial schools has been David Nock’s study on the use of residential schools by government and church as a replacement for Native culture. According to Nock, the government and the church used the schools to indoctrinate Native children into Euro-Canadian ways and eventually to assimilate them into Canadian urban life.
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